Title 5 – May 2017 TOK Essay KQ 3 Which AOK(area of knowing) involve more disagreements within the discipline ? Why?

The theories in Natural Sciences do manage to obtain a general consensus amongst the scientific community after the observations, experiments, investigations and results are found to be consistent , reproducible and in agreement over time.

Compared to this , theories in Human Sciences cannot base their findings of human societies and individuals that can make claims to be consistent or reproducible . The theories in Human Sciences rely more on drawing inferences based on observations without making much of sweeping conclusions.

In the area of Economics , for example three Economists Eugene F. Fama, Lars Peter Hansen and Robert J. Shiller were awarded the Nobel , who worked independently, but were found to collectively explain and predict the workings of financial markets. The committee , while being cognizant of the disagreements between the three economists , highlighted on the fact ,how far the economics profession remains from agreeing on the answers to important questions in Economics.

In recent years in the area of History , there is an accepted norm of exploring multiple perspectives that requires incorporating source materials that reflect different views – read disagreements-of a historical event. The validity of singular/one-sided narratives has been questioned and instead drawing perspectives from multiple sources – incorporating the pluralism and diversity of participants and affected parties –has been advocated. Experienced historians often put together competing versions of a story to build the reality of a historical event.